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Belltown LIFE
Places Where the Past Lives On: 2 Belltown Lunch: 4 How To Become a Belltownian: 6
How to live here • Where to eat here • Things to see here
#3 / Fall 2007
Louie Raffloer
FREE
Belltown LIFE
2
Places Where The Past Lives On
T
Seattle Municipal Archives
his odd li’l corner of Seattle has gone through a
lot of changes over the
past century or so; particularly
in the past decade or two as
newer, taller, fancier buildings
have popped up.
Still, several historic buildings remain in Belltown. The
following are among them.

The Austin A. Bell Building,
2427 1st Ave., was designed
by Elmer Fischer in 1889.
It was commissioned by Eve
Bell, the widow of the ill-fated
Austin Bell (son of William
Bell, the pioneer who’d originally settled Belltown). During
the Gold Rush days, the Bell
Building served as a hotel and
dance hall.
By 1937 the Bell Building
was part of local building col-

Seattle Fire Station 2, at
Fourth and Battery, is the city’s
oldest operating firefighting fa-
Nancie Kosnoff is
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
Regular Belltown Messenger readers know the story
of Film Row, the distribution offices and screening rooms centered at the old Film Exchange
Building on Second and Battery (now the site of the Belltown Court). Movies weren’t
made there, nor were they
publicly exhibited; but every
step in between those two took
place there.
One key part of Film Row
was the Paramount Pictures
office at 2332 1st Ave. It was
built at the dawn of talking
pictures in the early 1930s. It
handled the booking and shipping of the studio’s product to
theaters in four states plus the
then-territory of Alaska.
By 1956, the movie business
was contracting, while airfreight networks were growing. The studios found less of
a need for all far-flung branch
exchanges. The Paramount
exchange building became
the new home of the Catholic
Seamen’s Union, a waterfront
ministry originally founded in
1939. Today, the Del Rey res-

taurant/lounge
main floor.
occupies
its
The Edgewater Hotel (originally “Inn”) on Pier 67 is
Seattle’s first, and still only,
“on-the-water” hostelry. It was
built in 1962, as part of a hotel-and-motel building boom
accompanying the Century 21
world’s fair. After the fair, the
Edgewater might have become
just another place to stay (albeit one where you could “Fish
From Your Window”)—but for
an ingenious move by then-owner Don Wright to attract a new
class of business travelers.
As the Beatles’ 1964 U.S.
tour was being organized, all
of Seattle’s other top hotels
wanted nothing to do with the
moptops or their manic teen
fans. Wright took on the challenge, and its associated potential for publicity. Wright and
his staff devised and executed
a plan to get the idols on and
off the premises and to keep
the screaming hordes out.
Clark
[email protected]
cility. Built in 1921, it replaced
an earlier structure at today’s
Space Needle site. When the
current Station 2 first opened,
its back wall faced the then
still-standing remnants of Denny Hill, which would be leveled
by the decade’s end.
Clark
lector Sam Israel’s stock of
low-rent, low-maintenancebudget properties. Israel left its
three upper floors vacant, rath-
er than spend to make them occupiable. The building gained
landmark
designation
in 1977; five
years later, a
fire seriously
damaged
what was left
of its interior.
In 1997, condo developers
bought
the
building from
Austin A. Bell
Samis’s estate for $1 million. They kept
the facade and built a modern
structure behind it.
Rex
“DURING THE
GOLD RUSH
DAYS, THE
BELL BUILDING SERVED AS
A HOTEL AND
DANCE HALL.”
SEATTLE FIRE STATION 2 at Fourth and Battery in 1928.
—continued on next page
3
Belltown LIFE
A man enjoys some art at a recent opening at Belltown’s Roq La Rue Gallery
(2312 Second Avenue), which specializes in “Pop Surrealism.”
Rex
DOCUMENTING DOWNTOWN SEATTLE
presents
Belltown LIFE
#3 g Fall 2007 e Circulation 20,000
EDITOR Clark Humphrey
WRITERS Ronald Holden, Megan Lee
PHOTOS Louie Raffloer
RESTAURANT
REVIEWS Ronald Holden
CO-FOUNDER & GURU
Elaine Bonow — 206-441-6071
PUBLISHER
Alex R. Mayer — 206-331-6031
Belltown Messenger
belltownmessenger.com
BELLTOWN LIFE #3
IS PRODUCED IN ASSOCIATION WITH
PACIFIC PUBLISHING CO. INC.
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Diana Lull — 206-461-1293
[email protected]
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Afterwards, Wright had the
hallway carpets cut up and
sold to Beatlemaniacs as souvenirs.
From then on, the Edgewater continued to welcome rockers—and their adventurous
fans, as recounted in Frank
Zappa’s song “Mudshark.”
(The story on which the song
is based can be read online
at www.arf.ru/Notes/Fillmore/
app.html.)

The Five Point Cafe, one
of Belltown’s last workingstiff diners and dive bars, was
strictly a food-and-coffee operation when it opened in 1929.
(The building had been put up
seven years before by the Webb
Investment Company as a dairy
warehouse.)
With the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, beer and wine
were added to the offerings. In
Clark
PO Box 61370, Seattle, WA 98141
206-331-6031 fax 206-260-7554
E
F
I
L
n
w
o
t
l
Bel
1949, as restaurants in Washington could start serving hard
liquor, then-owner C. Preston
Smith opened up an adjacent
barroom.
Smith’s son Dick started
working at the Five Point in
the ’50s, took over its management in 1975, and continued
to lord over it until his 2001
death.

(For more fun historic anecdotes, fully illustrated, check
out our new book Seattle’s Belltown, coming this fall from Arcadia Publishing.
This story is based partly on
the research of Nick Bauroth,
who wrote about Belltown’s
origins for the old Regrade
Dispatch before he went off to
pursue an academic career. At
last word he was teaching at
North Dakota State University
at Fargo.) ◆
Belltown LIFE
photo by Ronald
4
Belltown Lunch
A GALAXY FAR FROM THE CORNER
MINI-MART
C
ome summer, come fall,
come 11 o’clock, and a
young man’s fancy turns
to thoughts of lunch.
For the hundreds who toil in
Belltown, it’s an increasingly
attractive notion. Lunch is no
longer limited to a sandwich
made by Klingons in a factory
far, far away, then wrapped in
plastic and teleported, half-frozen, from a distant warehouse
to your corner mini-mart.
Indeed much of the same
broad palate that beckons to
foodies at night is already on
offer at noon, from the freshest
fish to the most exotic flavors.
You’ll find Belltown’s most
ambitious lunch at Qube, on
the corner of 2nd and Stewart, in the newly earthquakeproofed St. Regis Hotel. The
Grand Opening sign is still in
the window, which is perhaps
why executive chef Lisa Nakamura continues to put her
best culinary foot forward.
Three-course “sets” at lunch
offer sophisticated flavors and
beautiful presentation. At the
center of the Ruby Turf Set, a
bowl of ravioli filled with Kobestyle shortribs swims in a bath
of wasabi demi-glace. True, it’s
a $15 lunch, to which you really should add another $8 or
so for one of Qube’s exquisite
sakes. But you’re not forking
out cab fare to get to Canlis,
which isn’t open for lunch anyway. In fact, it’s a pleasure to
spend a couple of bucks more
for lunch when it’s so clearly
worth it.
What else? You want sea-
GRILLED SCALLOPS at the Flying Fish.
food? No-brainer. Head down to
Flying Fish, where you can sit
on the deck overlooking First
Avenue and enjoy perfectly
seared scallops or a shrimp risotto.
Barbecue? That would be
the Frontier Room. Nothing as
delectable as their slow-roasted ribs, unless it’s their grilled
shrimp.
Indian? The subcontinent’s
flavors took their time coming
to Belltown, but Balvir Singh
has now opened Tandoori Hut
on Second between Vine and
Cedar. Lunch brings a generous and inexpensive buffet
where you can sample specialties from the kitchen’s 800-degree tandoor as well as curries,
breads and dals.
Italian? Hey, that’s easy. Drop
in at La Vita è Bella on Second.
The luncheon fare is light and
delicious, especially the crepes
stuffed with spinach.
You want sushi? True, nei-
ther the Temple of Shiro nor
the Tabernacle of Saito is
open before late afternoon,
but there are plenty of alternatives, starting with Wasabi
Bistro and Kyo Sushi. The best
might be Sushi Wave, at 1st
and Broad, where owner Spencer Kim himself stands behind
the sushi bar and assembles
individual delicacies as well as
combinations.
You want Thai? Yes, there’s
Thai in Belltown. At Bell Thai,
for example, the Bathing Rama
swims in a mild peanut sauce.
Can’t seem to get past the Phad
Thai on the menu at Shallots.
Or, at Karma, a satisfying version with wider noodles that
they call Malaysian Phad Thai.
Granted, there’s still no pho
parlor in Belltown, an oversight of global proportions, but
there is, on the other hand, one
of the city’s classiest burgers,
at the Two Bells. ◆
—Ronald Holden
James Malevitsis and Raffaele Calise present
serving revisited Italian cuisine.
Open LUNCH & DINNER
7 Days A Week
Corner of Western & Broad
across from the new Sculpture Park
206-728-9600
• Belltown�s
Newest
Restaurant •
Belltown LIFE
Second Avenue
BELLTOWN’S INTERNATIONAL
BOULEVARD
I
f First Avenue is Belltown’s
playground for party-goers
visiting from Kirkland and
Kalamazoo, Second is its treelined, international boulevard,
a place for those who might
otherwise stroll the Champs
Elysees or the Via Veneto. Belltown for grownups, in other
“BELLTOWN
FOR GROWNUPS, IN OTHER
WORDS.”
words. Not a shopping street,
but a half-mile-long restaurant
row.
We might begin our stroll
at the north end of the street,
where sidewalk tables cluster
outside Belltown’s first Indian
restaurant, Tandoori Hut. Half
a block to the south, under new
red umbrellas, The Local Vine
is Seattle’s newest wine bar,
which supplements its offering
of locally grown vintages with
the hundreds of bottles wines
around the globe.
Louie
With typical Sicilian hospitality, La Vita è Bella serves
pizza, pasta, bruschette, duck,
and veal. Mamma Enza, who
created the menu, has her own
place on Queen Anne now, but
her generous spirit remains.
Comfy European furnishings
fill the small space at Bellino,
a sweet little coffee shop next
door. Tavolata is entirely homegrown, the product of Ethan
Stowell’s aspiration for the camaraderie of a communal table
in an Italian village.
While there’s no outdoor
seating at Shiro’s, Seattle’s
best sushi bar, no such tradition stops Wasabi Bistro from
putting out sidewalk tables just
down the street; it’s a hybrid
Japanese restaurant & lounge,
anyway. Saito’s another classic
sushi bar, while Wann adds the
bonhomie of a traditional Japanese izakaya.
Mustn’t forget Marjorie’s,
where you can sit on a shaded
patio and enjoy the vibrant
flavors of Nawlins. Moroccan?
That would be Marrakesh, just
across the street. Thai? Give
Karma a try. More noodles?
Yup, we got that. Noodle Ranch.
Modern American? That would
be the place Scott Staples
named for his daughter, Zoe,
on the corner of Blanchard.
No surprise, even sophisticated Second has its share of
dive bars. This shouldn’t be
taken as a pejorative statement. It seems to me that
every neighborhood, in every country, needs dive bars
—places like the Rendezvous,
Lava Lounge and Whisky Bar
—to keep its alcoholics off the
street, as a public service, you
understand. A very popular, I
might say inexplicably popular
Mexican restaurant, Mama’s,
is affiliated with the Lava
Lounge, by the way, providing
a healthy base of refried beans
to Belltown visitors who wander down the street after rock
concerts at the Crocodile.
Fans of live jazz have their
own venue, Tula’s, where you
can often hear talented pianists, torch singers, bassists
and horn players or even fullthroated jazz orchestras—music as American as apple pie—
for a modest cover charge plus
the price of a vodka tonic.
Oh, and what could be more
American than the hot dogs
at Shorty’s Coney Island? Hot
dogs served to the accompaniment of pinball machines!
Indeed, when you tire of the
arcade, you tire of life. ◆
—Ronald Holden
*Available while supplies last.
CAFE CAMPAGNE
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6
Belltown LIFE
How to Become a Belltownian
Y
eah, a new Belltown
condominium can cost
more to move into than
a suburban tract house. And
your condo will be smaller
(perhaps much smaller), and it
won’t have a yard, a basement,
or a semi-detached garage you
can use as a storage shed.
Louie
You’ll have to learn to live
with fewer family heirlooms
and household tchotchkes, and
sell/donate/store the rest (and,
without a yard, it’s more difficult to hold a yard sale).
You won’t be able to stick
“YOU WON’T
GET TO WHILE
AWAY YOUR
WEEKENDS
MOWING THE
LAWN.”
propriate season), there’s nothing like eagerly torturing yourself in the outdoor air. Myrtle
Edwards Park offers one of the
best jogging/running environments anywhere. It’s got easily
identifiable landmarks which
let you pace your distance and
time, so you can improve your
physiological productivity at
the proper rate.
But Belltown life isn’t really
about solo pursuits. You’ll soon
learn you’re not expected here
to merely shuffle between your
home and your workplace. This
is a social neighborhood, a
place of interactivity and interconnectedness. Go to movies
and plays and operas. Hang out
at our happenin’ rock and jazz
clubs. Enjoy a “shared plates”
restaurant meal. Get involved
in your condo association, or at
least get to know your immediate neighbors.
Belltown, like all the other
great “urban revivals” around
the country, isn’t about shoving the suburban lifestyle into
a more efficient size. It’s about
re-threading the nation’s flayed
social fabric. ◆
—Clark Humphrey
DOWNTOWN DRINKING TIPS
Belltown Buzzed
F
ar be it from me to encourage random, unsupervised
consumption
of alcoholic beverages. This is
why I don’t frequent rave parties, dance clubs or music festivals. Instead, I indulge with
some regularity in one of man’s
most sophisticated rituals:
cocktail time, or, as it’s known
in Belltown, Happy Hour.
For years now, Belltown’s
premier cocktail has been the
Alpine Martini at Cascadia, a
beverage of such surpassing
simplicity that I’m amazed it
has no clones. It’s a generous
pour of Absolut Citron in which
floats a “snowball” of sorbet
flavored with alpine herbs, garnished with a sprig of Douglas
fir. A perfect combination, winter or summer.
I’m also partial to a cocktail
called the Negroni. It’s an Italian classic, consisting of equal
parts Campari (the bitter Italian
aperitivo), sweet red vermouth
and gin. Shaken and served up,
or stirred together in a highball glass, it’s properly served
with a garnish of orange and
(especially if you’re in Italy)
accompanied by a sideboard of
appetizers. We’re not in Italy, I
know, so you may have to remind the barkeep how to make
a Negroni, unless you go to a
genuine Italian place like La
Vita è Bella or a genuine cocktail bar like Suite 410. Both
places also know how to make
Ralph H.
grotesquely large Christmas
lighting schemes all around
your home. (In some condo
buildings, residents aren’t even
allowed to decorate their windows).
Even if you’re getting a dedicated parking space with your
condo, you won’t have a driveway of your very own. You won’t
have a place to keep that cool
El Camino restoration project
up on cinder blocks while you
try to find the time to finally
get it back into running shape.
You won’t get to while away
your weekends mowing the
lawn, painting the siding, re-
placing the shutters, caulking
the walls, re-shingling the roof,
installing an authentic steamlocomotive-shaped
mailbox,
trimming the hedges, eradicating the weeds, re-aligning the
drain pipes, or sanitizing the
hot tub.
If you want to plant a garden, you’ll likely have to do it
in a P-Patch or other off-site
location.
If you’ve got a car that needs
washing, you’ll have to have it
done at a commercial car wash.
You won’t get to generate your
own mass of soapy, dirty water
to go into the regular drainage
system and out to sea.
Before too long you’ll face
peer pressure to start walking around the neighborhood.
Imagine: Going to the drug
store, to the bank, to the delimart without the chance to
show off your proud slab of Detroit/Tokyo/Stuttgart steel.
Why, you can even go out
drinking and not worry about
how you’ll drive home. (Though
I ask you not to abuse this privilege; busting one’s liver can,
in the ol’ long run, be just as
deadly as busting one’s car.)
Instead of constant upkeep
on your home’s physical plant,
you’ll be tempted to try out
some new non-work activities.
Reading, art making, art collecting, blogging, photography,
political activism, ballet, knitting, a new language, appreciating fine food—all these and
more can be learned, as the
matchbook ads used to say,
At Home In Your Spare Time.
Classes and Internet-organized
“Meetups” can be found for
many of these activities, right
here in Belltown.
Your doctor says you need
something a bit more strenuous? Several commercial workout gyms and dance studios
are in the area. Some condo
and apartment buildings here
offer their own private workout
rooms.
But during the appropriate
season (and for the true jocks
n’ jockettes, it’s always the ap-
a Bellini, another Italian favorite; which starts with a base of
white peach purée, topped up
with Prosecco, the sparkling
wine of northeastern Italy’s
Veneto region. Either makes a
great start to Happy Hour.
Used to be, the “hour” was,
oh, 3 to 5, the idea being to let
your neighborhood alcoholics
start early so they wouldn’t
interfere with your after-work
crowd. That got to be 4 to 6,
precisely to attract the after-
Belltown LIFE
7
Belltown Buzzed
work crowd, then 5 to 7, which is
now pretty much Seattle’s standard. About half the places with
early-evening drinks specials have
added late-night happy hours as
well, 10 to midnight, 10 to closing, that sort of thing. One would
think we’re a nation of drunks,
using those in between hours to
sleep it off.
Should that be insufficient,
See Sound Lounge at First &
Blanchard (SSL to its friends)
weighs in with a mid-evening Happy Hour, 8 to 10 PM. Recognizing that most of its patrons have
already had a bite and a drink by
the time they arrive for the latenight music scene, SSL decided to
entice them in a bit earlier than
usual. Llineup of $3 beers and
cocktails and $5 menu items.
So now, with Happy Hour at
Umi Sake House running until 8
with two dozen sakes on its card,
the whole evening’s covered.
What a town!
Umi, by the way, styles itself
as an izakaya, a sort of convivial,
order-what-you-like place. The
prime example would be Wann
Izakaya on 2nd between Lenora
and Virginia. Another izakaya is
Black Bottle, which has no happy
hour unless you count their flavor-packed menu of small plates,
which, at $8 and $9, don’t need
half-price incentives.
We shouldn’t forget wines, by
the way. A genuine wine bar, The
Local Vine, has just opened at the
corner of 2nd and Vine. And another wine bar, Txoli, opening at 2nd
and Virginia later this year.
Though they also have full bars,
the wine lists at Campagne and
94 Stewart are remarkable, and
skilled sommeliers at both places
(Jake Kosseff, Lindesy Norton respectively). There’s also a lot to
be said for a glass of Jurançon (a
dry white from the Pyrenees) at
Le Pichet.
Close out the night, when close
it you must, with an amaro, an
Italian bitter at Tavolata. You’ll
be in good company. ◆
—Ronald Holden
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8
Belltown LIFE
Verbal Snapshots
OF BELLTOWN
T
he following are brief anecdotes of sights and sounds
this reporter has observed
in Belltown over the past several
years.

A late-model import pulls into
a miraculously vacant parking
space near the Viceroy. A young
woman exits, exhorting “Thank
you parking goddess!”

changes some quaintly-accented
tales of the old days.
A middle-aged woman watches from across the street as a
wrecking ball does its systematic job on the Commodore Ho-


Almost a quarter-century after
finding something approximating
fame with the Psychedelic Furs,
Britpop singer Richard Butler is
touring with a new band at the
Crocodile. It’s at least two hours
before the show, but Butler’s dutifully greeting a pair of longtime
fans outside the club. He autographs their vintage LPs and ex-
Clark
On a Wednesday evening, Uptown Espresso is accidentally
overbooked with Meetup.comorganized groups. Knitters have
grabbed the back room. Frenchlanguage students have pulled
several tables together in the
front. Amateur photographers,
clutching their latest portfolios
to pass around, have to huddle
around one peripheral table.
In the midst of all this comes
KOMO-TV weatherman Steve
Pool, out to get that doubletall beverage that’ll keep him
awake for his 11 p.m. newscast. He gives a winning smile
to everyone who notices him,
but declines the opportunity to
learn any Francophone weather
terms.
tel. “I had a lot of good times in
there,” she confides. “Some of
them I even remember.”

Another late night drags on
at the 5 Point. A well-numbed
young man stands up from his
table in the bar, notices the
stuffed moray eel suspended
from the ceiling, and breaks into
a flailing attempt at Dean Martin
singing “That’s A-Moray!”

An apartment manager is
showing off the spectacular view
from a value-priced one-bedroom
unit. The prospective tenant
peeks out the window and sees
something on the roof
—continued on page 11
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Belltown LIFE
10
1
Stop the diet yo-yo by
changing your mind’s eye.
H
ave you every wondered
why Americans seem
to have an unlimited
lifetime pass on the yo-yo diet
rollercoaster? If your weight
loss and gain feels like the tide
in Elliot bay, you’re not alone.
Most Americans rebound to
their previous weight or higher
when the diet fails or ends.
Willpower or a poor metabolism gets blamed in the
end but this phenomenon has much more
to do with the brain
than the body.
The term “mind’s
eye” is an old concept, but is the single
most important factor in keeping the fat
off once you lose it. It is
the most powerful thing
about you and will dictate
and control your present and
continued success. Your mind’s
eye will also make fat loss happen faster and with the least
amount of effort, so it is vital
to get it right and understand
how it works.
The main reason people yoyo diet is because they still
think of themselves the same
way after they lose their fat.
Their brains have not changed
and the fat person is still in
there despite what they see in
the mirror. The mind’s eye is
much more powerful than any
physical aspect and will steer
your body to wherever it is.
Those who lose weight and
keep it off have changed their
mind’s eye and think of themselves differently when they
get the weight off. It really is
that simple but so many people
don’t get it.
Lewis
Pratt
If you always think
of yourself as a fat person,
you will always be fat. You
make specific conscious and
unconscious decisions and actions each day that keep you
fat because your mind’s eye
always has to be right. If you
start to think of yourself as a
thin person (even if you are
not yet), your body will follow that thought and help you
reach your fat loss goals faster
because your decisions and ac-
Honesty, Intregrity,
Teamwork & Results
I look forward to working with you
on your sale or purchase.
Kelly
Charlton
REALTOR®
206.920.6764
[email protected]
www.kellycharlton.com
tions are different.
If you practice thinking of
yourself as a thin person, your
mind’s eye will change slowly
and permanently along with
your body. This exercise will
cause you to become a different
person physically
and mentally
when you reach your
goal, and will make you hold
onto your new body instead of
rebounding back to where you
were (or worse).
It may seem hard at first,
but changing your minds eye is
a skill that gets better and easier with practice. Start in small
steps and picture yourself just
a little thinner next week. Focus on the areas that are in
fact getting noticeably thinner
so you see the confirmation of
by P.J. Glassey
your efforts, and ignore your
“problem” areas. This will reinforce your new minds eye and
will help change it faster and
more permanently.
Find a picture of someone
you want to look like and focus
on how that feels every day.
Picture your self that way now,
and feel that body in the present tense. Close your eyes and
look down at yourself in your
mind, seeing yourself actually
in that body. Pretending is the
exercise here and experiencing that person now, even
though you are not there yet,
is the whole key.
Consistent practice will
actually change the physical
wiring in your brain and permanently re-route the signals and
nerve impulses necessary for
your new mind’s eye. Fat loss
takes time. So does changing
your mind’s eye. It’s changing
both together that will ensure
your success and your ability
to keep the fat off. ◆
P.J. Glassey is the owner of X
Gym, with locations in Belltown,
Alki and Kirkland. P.J. has developed unique exercise methods requiring only 20 minutes, two times
a week for double the results of traditional training. The X Gym was
started in 1998 and has grown almost exclusively through word of
mouth from satisfied clients.
Belltown LIFE
Verbal Snapshots
—continued from page 8
of the building next door—a
broken videocassette recorder,
apparently defenestrated by a
frustrated tenant.

Four members of a bachelorette party prance northward
on Second Avenue on a Friday
night. All are decked out in billowy evening gowns with pageant-esque sashes. The bride
herself sports a modest but
shiny tiara. They giggle loudly,
stopping bystanders in their
tracks. One of the group loudly
play-acts at picking out a guy
to comfort the bride on her last
night of freedom.

At one of the sidewalk tables outside the Lava Lounge,
an African-American man and
a Caucasian man discuss the
devolution of rap music, from a
prosocial exclamation of black
pride into a genre that stereotypes black men as thugs and
drug dealers. The white guy
proclaims, “It’s those Hollywood producers that did it. The
only time they ever meet black
men is when they’re out buying
drugs.” The black man nods in
tentative agreement.

In the Belltown Center on
a rainy late afternoon, a lone
client sits in the second-floor
waiting room, waiting. The
only other signs of life:
1) A crawling-text LED display sign, stuck in demonstration mode, showing all its attention-getting tricks;
2) A bored security guard
reading a paperback novel;
3) A TV blaring PBS’s wholesome kids’ shows, above a sign
ordering people not to try to
change the channel.

A commercial “party bus”
pulls up outside a First Avenue bar, bedecked with bright
signage promising the ultimate
in mobile hedonistic experiences. Nearly a dozen smartly-clad young adults, almost
all male, tumble out the door.
They’re screaming and highfiving and exchanging loud
guttural grunts. One passerby

tells another, “At least they’re
not driving.”
The Whisky Bar isn’t normally open early Saturday mornings. But it is when England’s
playing in soccer’s World Cup.
The owners, several of their
family members, and a handful
of invited regulars chug coffee
(or stronger stuff) as they stare,
eyes half-open, at the projector
TV. As the “extra time” seconds tick away toward a preliminary-round victory, several
half-awake men rouse to full
reverie to sing/shout a familiar
(to them) anthem of triumph.
It, in turn, is drowned out by
the DJ system’s playback of
“We Are the Champions.”

After a speech by a couple of
progressive activists, prior to
the 2006 general elections, the
Labor Temple crowd spills into
the streets. One man enters
a car adorned with a bumper
sticker: “Democrats Are Hot—
Ever Hear of a ‘Nice Piece of
Elephant’?”
—Clark Humphrey
11
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12
Belltown LIFE
Olympic Sculpture Park
MB
An ice sculptor works his magic during grand opening celebrations. Photo by Louie.
MarilyN
Berg
Antiques &
Shell Furniture
Crystal & Silver
Chandeliers
Clothing &
Leather Bags
Jewelry
Original designs
by Marilyn Berg
using semi-precious
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Miriam Haskell Jewelry
Decorators Welcome
st
2405 1 Avenue
Belltown
206-448-2480
hours: tuesday-sunday 12-7
or by appointment
closed mondays
Belltown LIFE
13
Olympic Sculpture Park
Visitors mingle below Alexander Calder’s “Eagle.” Photo by Louie.
“We’re Local
and Very
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Free Parking in Back
524 First Ave. N
Seattle, WA 98109
206-284-0760
Shop online at
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206.817.6999
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Belltown LIFE
14
Home Services Guide
We have the Perfect Solutions...
LLC/Bonded
Ilonna Hammer
RunAround [email protected]
206-910-6975 TEL
206-913-2377 FAX
• Pickup/Delivery Services
• Florist/Gift Purchases
• Special Event Planning
• Senior Care Assistance
• Proxy Services
By appointment only • www.runaroundservices.com
Whether you’re buying
your first, moving up, or
investing in another if you need a mortgage,
call us.
206-256-0066
[email protected]
Stacey Drake
Branch Manager/Mtg. Consultant
Windermere Morgage Services LLC/Wall St.
INTERBAY SCOOTERS, INC.
2626 15th Avenue West in Seattle
Phone (206) 284-9084
www.interbayscooters.com
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Fischer Plumbing
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Marnet Consulting
644 Strander Blvd, #403
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Ph & Fax: 206-325-1103
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206-783-4129
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Belltown LIFE
15
Home Services Guide
LaDonna’s
SEATTLE HOME
COMPUTER REPAIR
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Computer Security &
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27 years experience • Magnolia Resident
206.282.7306
email: [email protected]
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425-793-3100
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644 Strander Blvd Tukwila, WA 98188-2923
Fax: 425-793-4100 www.seattlepack-ship.com
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email: [email protected]
206-282-4303
Photos by Louie